Ina Garten’s Go-To $3 Ingredient for Better Meatballs Is a Decades-Old Trick

Spaghetti and meatballs are serious business to my family. Outside of Thai food, my grandma’s all-time favorite cuisine is Italian food. She loves the bright, citrus-forward flavors paired with heavier breads and pastas. We eat Italian food quite often, and one of her favorites is spaghetti with meatballs. Another favorite of hers? Ina Garten. So when I learned that Ina Garten uses 4C Foods Seasoned Bread Crumbs to make her famous meatballs, I knew we had to try it for our next family supper. 

And that’s exactly what I did. I made meatballs with Ina’s go-to breadcrumbs for my family, and let’s just say we’ll never be making them another way. 

These aren’t just any breadcrumbs. 4C Foods has been around for nearly a century (since 1935!), and contrary to other brands or types, these particular breadcrumbs are seasoned with Pecorino Romano cheese, garlic powder, onion powder, and other spices (it doesn’t list exactly what they are, but I see flecks of dried parsley). I’m no stranger to 4C Foods Seasoned Bread Crumbs. My dad has actually long used them to bread his chicken cutlets, but I never, ever thought about using them in meatballs. 

To prepare for dinner, I followed her classic meatball recipe that while usually calls for a mixture of pork and fresh breadcrumbs. My grandfather is Muslim so I swapped the bit of pork for more ground beef, and I wanted to see how far these breadcrumbs went in flavor, so swapped the homemade bread crumbs with even more 4C Foods Seasoned Bread Crumbs. The result? Extra flavorful meatballs that had notes of garlic, onion, and cheese in each and every bite (they were SO dreamy!). 

I didn’t tell my family that I was making a special kind of meatballs tonight, just that we were having meatballs, and after the first bite they knew that something was different, and that that difference was better. My grandparents, parents, and siblings all raved about how “flavorful” and “delicious” the meatballs were. 

A testament to how good they were? As soon as my brother was done eating, he rushed to the pantry to take out the Tupperware to make himself a plate for tomorrow’s lunch before anyone else could claim the rest. 

Safe to say that we’ll be making our meatballs with 4C Foods Seasoned Bread Crumbs for the foreseeable future. But are we all that surprised? The Barefoot Contessa doesn’t miss. 

Buy: 4C Foods Seasoned Bread Crumbs, $2.28 for 15 ounces at Walmart

Have you tried Ina’s favorite bread crumbs? Tell us about it in the comments below.

This post originally appeared on The Kitchn. See it there: Ina Garten's Favorite $3 Ingredient for Making Better Meatballs (She's Used It for Decades)